Departures and an Apostolic Visit

This was NOT a quiet week!  So many comings and goings and the office full of people. And we loved every minute of it!

Sister Pettit, Masha, Sister Gregory, Sue, Ken

First, we had our usual Monday night dinner for the Sisters serving in Shuvalovo Ward.  









Tuesday Sue went and got a much-needed haircut. She learned a new Russian word--чуть-чуть. Pronounced "chute-chute" --with a hard "ch" like church, not like the English word chute/shoot. It means just a little bit. That's how much hair to cut off--"чуть-чуть."

Wednesday was visa trips for 15 people. For a change, the Mission rented one big (20-passenger) bus and took them all at once to Narva, Estonia. It all seemed to go well.

While they were gone, we had some companions who did not go on the trip and were hanging around needing something to do. It was easy to put them to work, of course.  

We had volunteers going through all the Church closets to throw away anything that references Family Search or familysearch.org. It is now blocked and illegal to access in Russia, because of Russia privacy laws. There is no way to store the world's largest genealogical database on servers in Russia!

Sister McColm and Sister Berge were doing inventory on the closets in the upstairs library in the Church part of the building.




And when they were done with that part, Sue got them to come down and work on the supply closet/storage room in the Mission Office. We have way too many copies of some things that we don't use. The Church Distribution Center in Moscow said we could send some back to them, but they wanted an inventory first. The Sisters made a good dent in that.  Sue will finish it off next week.

Elder Parker says good-bye to Elder Packer

Wednesday afternoon it was Transfers. The new arrivals came in on Tuesday afternoon.  Those going home leave early Thursday morning. On Wednesday the whole jigsaw puzzle of who-is-companions-to-whom-in-which-city comes together.

There is a meeting upstairs in the Church building where phone cards are exchanged and instructions given. The SIM card stays in the area when a person leaves. That way the new person has the phone numbers of all the Church members and friends in that area, and the Ward members know if they call that number, they will always get the volunteers--no matter who is now assigned to their ward. It works the same way in California!

On Transfer Day we get almost no office work done, and this is why. Not only is there the formal meeting upstairs, but this is the office area, and it's full of people coming and going all afternoon. This is the location of the big scale for weighing baggage for those going home. The storage room is open for those who need planners, pamphlets, etc.

Clockwise around Ken:  Sue, Sisters Camano, Gregory,
 Eaton, Mohlman & Wilson

Normally Ken isn't supposed to hug the young Sisters. But we had five going home that we've been so close to! Three of them have worked with us in Center Area for the last several months. So there was one big group hug before they left.

Sister Mohlman & Sister Camano

Sister Camano got a package in the mail on Wednesday morning--just in time before she left! It was from Igor in Murmansk. He sent a book about it and some small magnet souvenirs for her to share with Sister Mohlman. They taught him (via Skype) before he was baptized. And these two are going to be roommates in college next fall, so they can easily share the book.







Wednesday evening we were glad to have Sister Eaton's parents come and join us for dinner before they went down the street to the Mission Home to pick her up at 9 pm.










There is always a farewell dinner and testimony meeting at the Mission Home the night before volunteers go home. We are not invited, but we crashed the end of the party because we needed to escort the Eaton's there and show them how to find the right apartment, right? It was an exciting and tender moment to see them together after 18 months apart.


But before that, there was other excitement for the evening. We weren't there, but we learned there had been another party crasher. And heard all about it and got a copy of the photo.

First the back-story. A couple of months ago President Rawson heard that Elder Dieter Uchtdorf, one of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church, would be coming to visit our Mission this week. This is a big deal!! It was the first time ever he would be here as an apostle, although he visited as a German Stake President in 1991, after Russia first allowed missionaries in the country and when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed here. We were of course excited. Then we heard that he would be arriving in St. Petersburg on Wednesday afternoon and would speak to the volunteers in a meeting on Thursday at 5 pm--and to all the Church members and friends on Thursday evening. We were all excited, but the volunteers going home on Thursday morning were disappointed to miss him. President Rawson asked if the schedule could be changed so he could speak to the volunteers on Wednesday instead because of those going home--but was told no.

Then in the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday, President Rawson got a phone call asking if Elder and Sister Uchtdorf, and Elder and Sister Martino (the Area President for Russia & Eastern Europe) and Stake President Boris Leostrin could come to the Mission Home for dinner!  They knew the departing Elders and Sisters would be there. Sister Rawson didn't have time to cook more of the food she had prepared, so she had the Assistants to President Rawson call and order Chinese take-out to augment the dinner. These eight departing Sisters and Elders had a wonderful discussion with Elder Uchtdorf around the dinner table. They will never forget their last night in the mission.

Front Row:  Pres & Sister Martino, Sister and Elder Uchtdorf, Pres & Sister Rawson
Back Row:  Pres. Boris Leostrin, Sisters Camano, Mohlman, Wilson, Eaton, Gregory.
Elders Parker, Houston, Franckowiak, Hansen, Jorgensen

Then on Thursday afternoon, we had the privilege of hearing guidance and counsel from Elder Uchtdorf. Before the meeting started, Ken had set up chairs, and we lined up everyone for the all-mission photo. (For the parental-lurkers: there will be a copy sent to all the volunteers with everyone's name on it. They will also have individual photos of each with Elder Uchtdorf. Coming next week...)

A few things from Elder Uchtdorf's remarks that are memorable:

• Teach one another how to teach. Study and learn, and then let the Spirit refine your knowledge as you teach others.
• Teach repentance. The Lord will not remember our sins. We remember them as protection to not make the same errors again. But accept His forgiveness.
• When you go home you will feel that God has blessed your efforts. And he will bless your family, even those that you worry the most about.

After our meeting, the doors were opened to all the Church members in St. Petersburg. It was also broadcast to the church buildings in Kaliningrad, Vyborg, Petrozavodsk, Novgorod and Pskov, so those who lived too far out to come were able to watch. 

The St. Petersburg Stake has a wonderful choir that sang prelude and during the meeting.

Elder Uchtdorf called our Mission President "Awesome Rawson." He spoke about the Temple that has been announced to be built in Russia. There is no specific site yet. But as he said, before it can be built on land, it must be built in all our hearts. It's the commitment to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To prepare for the Temple, serve God and serve others--in and out of the Church.

He also asked the Russian Saints to stay in Russia and build the Kingdom here. Don't emigrate. That's a hard message for some. But he is the prime example. He and his wife each joined the LDS Church as teenagers, married in their 20's, and decided not to take job opportunities in the US but to stay in Germany and raise their family there. That's where their children and grandchildren still are. He was a pilot for Lufthansa until he was asked to become one of the LDS Church leaders at age 54.

And he asked the Russians to work together in harmony--not all alike, but working well together.

After the meeting he stood around and talked with the members. One of those who got to meet him was our recently baptized Igor.  He came all the way down from Murmansk to meet Elder Uchtdorf.



So that was Wild Wednesday and Thoughtful Thursday.


Now for Fun Friday:
Since all the senior couples were in town, and since this is the last time that will happen before the Archibald's go home on May 10, President Rawson said we needed a senior couples outing. No one objected! There were two place on the Archibald's bucket list that we could do in one day.

The first is the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. It is right across the river from the Hermitage. It was constructed starting in 1718 by Peter I himself and was used to house some of his scientific collections. Now it includes displays of the lifestyles of indigenous people from all over the world: Alaska, Japan, India, Polynesia, Africa, Mongolia, China, America, etc. We saw all that on the first two floors.  There is another tour to the top two floors and up into the tower where there was an astronomy observatory. (Now there's too much light pollution in St. Petersburg to see stars.)  We didn't do that one.

Peter the Great Museum is the building with the tower.

We spent a couple of hours there, and then Kostya picked us up in the Mission van for the 45-minute drive out to the second item on the bucket list: Kronstadt. It was such a gorgeous day! Ken had to take this photo of the "High Bridge" over the mouth of the Neva River, with the Gazprom tower in the background and the World Cup stadium to the right.

Kronstadt is an island out in the Gulf of Finland, but it is connected by causeways forming a dam from both the north and the south to St. Petersburg.  We drove in from the north. (The Peter The Great museum is about at the top of the "t" in Petersburg on this map. We live at the blue dot over the "g.")

By the time we got out to the island we were all ready for lunch, so stopped and had yummy Chinese food. Since we were not in downtown St. Petersburg, they did not have English language menus with photos. We were glad Kostya was there to help us find what we wanted.

L-R:  Elder & Sister Peck, Kostya, Pres & Sister Rawson,
Ken, Sue, Elder & Sister Archibald

Kronstadt (a German word meaning Crown City) has an amazing cathedral. It is the Naval Cathedral, because Kronstadt has always been a naval base. The Navy had wanted a Cathedral there for about 150 years, but politics and cost meant it wasn't built until 1903-1913.  








It was closed by the Communist Government in 1929 and used as a movie theater, community center and concert hall on and off until the 1990's, when the Russian Orthodox Church took it over again. It needed extensive renovations, which were finally done only in 2013. It was rededicated for its centennial.

The Great Hall of the Naval Cathedral

After the Cathedral tour, we drove out the southern end of the island. The spot on the map above where the dotted lines go across the road is where the causeway becomes a tunnel so the big tankers and container ships and cruise ships and naval vessels can get into St. Petersburg harbor.

We drove south to take the Archibalds to the airport for their evening flight back to Kaliningrad. We will really miss them when they go home. They have served us personally, as they trained us for the office jobs when we first arrived, and then they came back and took over for the ten days we were in Utah for Sue's Mom's funeral in February. But they have done so much more to serve the LDS Church members here in Novgorod and in Kaliningrad, Russia. They have loved and supported and taught. They are a blessing and a great example of selfless service.